Shattered Soul
by Sean Krayce
Summary: In the realm beyond death where the physical is an illusion conjured by thought, each denizen of the Afterverse enjoys the privilege of their own private universe. Albus Dumbledore tasks himself with an impossible goal: The restoration of Tom Riddle's mutilated soul.
1. Out of the Void

**Chapter One**

**Out of the Void**

The void between was empty and without space. He had been constricted in that nothingness for immeasurable time: Days or years, he did not know. A chunk of imagined flesh without space to exist in. His only wish had been that he could have slept. But he was trapped in wretched alertness, straining to breathe with his collapsed lungs. Breath that he knew he didn't need. Back then, his punishment was to drown eternally, as if trapped in Apparition and unable to reach his destination. He knew why he couldn't complete the transition. He had given up too much of himself. Split his soul into too many pieces. And so he remained in an illusion of bodily existence in a placeless place. He hated to admit to himself that he sometimes wished he could go back to that first hell.

This new one was altogether worse, as his captors had intended.

It had begun slowly. Whispers on the edge of his consciousness intruded on his boredom.

_Voldemort__… Voldemort… where are you… where are you hiding…_

The whispers had come only fleetingly at first, but over time they became a buzz that did not cease. Voices searching for him. Briefly he had begun to hope that the voices were his followers, searching for him. But as their cries came into focus, he began to feel fear. Whispers were becoming shouts, screams; a cacophony of condemnation.

_We will find you, Voldemort! We will make you suffer endlessly!_

And then his solitude ended. He was squeezed the rest of the way across the imperceptible gap between two realities and exploded into a new place, familiar and yet utterly different in substance. He had a brief impression of an endless, formless whiteness that quickly vanished behind a sea of faces. Faces displaying anger, hatred and contempt.

The days — weeks? years? — that followed were the worst of his entire existence. He was subjected to abject horror and agony as hordes of his victims flocked into this little universe to torment him. Some merely wanted to vent their anger and frustration at him, hurling insults. Others went further, inflicting injuries that felt real enough. They were able to alter his reality at will, transforming the space around him into a tiny stone dungeon replete with tools to torment him. His body was not of their choosing. . . . nor his. He had the form of a stunted, slimy and flayed child. Blood oozed from sores and cuts that would not heal.

After every session with a vengeful victim, he would return to normal health — normal, of course, meaning covered in pus and boils, his imagined lungs forcing him to breathe.

They would leave him in various positions. Sometimes he hung by chains from the ceiling or wall. Sometimes he was left strapped to a table. Sometimes he was casually discarded in a puddle on the floor. Each visitor left their own mark on his prison, enhancing the gloom in whatever way they saw fit. For some time there had been a crack in the ceiling that endlessly dripped water, denying him even the comfort of silence when he was alone. Sometimes he was intentionally left beneath it to suffer as the water pelted his face. Unnecessary implements hung from the ceiling and walls: manacles, chains and ropes. One visitor, a victim who apparently knew him well, added a decaying corpse to keep him company — the wilting visage of Bellatrix hung by the arms from the wall, her legs crumpled against the floor, her eyeless face glaring at him. Numerous visitors had come and gone since then, with longer and longer periods of time in between, and each time the corpse was left staring at him. Were they moving it, or had its creator ensured that its empty gaze would always follow him?

Suddenly footsteps broke the relative silence, a sound he had not heard for. . . . well, he wasn't sure. It had been weeks, possibly months since his last visitor. He'd been alone for so very long, left lying in a puddle at the center of the room, tucked away under the torture table.

The footsteps stopped behind him. He tightened further into his fetal curl, his mangled hands balling into weak fists.

"Go away," he said, his voice soft and raspy. "I am still weary of your petty recriminations. Begone and leave me to suffer in peace."

"Oh I don't think I'll be going away any time soon, Tom," came an unpleasantly familiar voice. "We have things to discuss."

He hissed in response.

"I've wondered from time to time whether you'd ever come to visit me, Dumbledore. I confess I began to hope you never would. I am not interested in your drivel any more than the others'. I suffer, and will suffer forever. Let that be enough for you."

"Does it have to be forever, Tom?" the man replied. Indignation bristled in his mind. So, instead of tormenting him with recriminations, he wanted to dangle false hopes before his eyes?

"Begone, Dumbledore!" he hissed at his loudest, which was not much. He was so very weak. . . . "I am not interested in false hopes! Take your taunts elsewhere!"

"I read the book, you know." Dumbledore's conversational tone was infuriating. "_Secrets of the Darkest Art_, it was called. Do you recall it?"

The wretched fragment that had been Voldemort remained silent, apart from his labored breathing.

"You were always thorough, Tom," the hateful man pressed. "You read the footnote, I am sure. The split soul can be restored."

He would remain silent. And the man would lose hope and go.

"All it takes is remorse for your actions, Tom."

The word stirred his thoughts toward anger. It was the word that the boy had taunted him with in his final living moments. His wrath overcame him.

"Yes, yes, Dumbledore, but I must truly regret my actions, which I do not. I only regret the mistakes that led to my fall. That I was not more decisive in dealing with you and that boy sooner. Besides, even if I felt _remorse __—_" He spat the word. "— it would be useless without the rest of me to restore. Those fragments are lost, destroyed."

"Are they?" he asked. "How do you know? Souls cannot be destroyed, they come here. How can you be sure that the rest of you is not here, in this place, waiting to be found?"

"_Begone_, I say! Do not taunt me further!"

"Think on it, Tom," the man said. "Ask yourself where those fragments might be found if they still exist, look deep within and ask yourself, are you not the slightest bit sorry for what you've done, and for the lives you've destroyed?"

Finally, his patience spent, he screamed it. "LEAVE, CURSE YOU!"

The exclamation sent him into a fit of coughs and gags. It seemed like hours of pain and agony as he attempted to recover his breath. Why should he have to breathe here, in this accursed place? Breath was for the living.

"I said to begone, Dumbledore, and I meant it. Leave me in peace!"

His demand was met by silence, even the dripping water had ceased. Struggling, he turned over. Every movement was an effort. Gazing at the space that had been behind him, he found it empty. Nothing was visible but a faintly lit, grimy stone stairway leading up and out of his dungeon. His hell. Self-inflicted, he knew, but that did not change a thing.

He was alone. He had been alone in life, and he would be alone in death.

Forever.


	2. A Phoenix from the Ashes

**Chapter Two**

**A Phoenix From the Ashes**

With neither flourish nor fanfare, an impossible landscape appeared before him.

Even though he'd seen it many times before, the scene he beheld was _still_ disconcerting. His mind — wrapped as it still was in purely physical notions of cause and effect, gravity, and unchanging laws of physics and magic — reeled at the impossibilities arrayed before him. Improbable rock formations overlooked exotic, patchwork meadows of multicolored grass. Waterfalls fell downward, upward and sideways in dizzying, swirling combinations of reds, greens, purples and other colors that he had no name for. Two brilliant suns adorned the deep purple sky and to his right, the world simply ended, falling away as a jewel-encrusted cliff face with the sky wrapping around below him. A third sun looked up from below. All of it was set against a backdrop of glittering red, yellow and white stars that should not have been visible in the daylight, and yet were.

Leave it to Albus Dumbledore to conjure such a fantastical background for his Space.

He looked up from the stone plinth, the entry point, that stood beside the edge of the world. High above him, built upon a jagged, glittering amethyst that floated above the perfectly still lake, was Albus' home. It, too, was as nonsensical as the landscape it was built upon. Seven stone towers arrayed in no recognizable pattern stood suspended over the jewel, each rising higher than the last — and only the lowest actually touched the crystalline foundation. Delicate stone buttresses and catwalks connected them together in ways that must surely collapse under their own weight.

They certainly would have in _his_ Space. But Dumbledore's reputation for brilliance was well-deserved, and anyone who did not know better would have thought he had been living in the Afterverse for centuries, rather than just two decades.

He spared a glance at the spindly, delicate spiral staircase that climbed, from a precipice overlooking the lake, hundreds of feet to the base of the first tower. A staircase he had climbed only once. Never again.

With a thought, he rose into the air as though his body were weightless — which, of course, it really was. The body around him was mere perception and weighed whatever he wanted it to. One of the earliest lessons of the Afterverse. He bypassed the front door and rose even higher, settling at last onto the catwalk that connected to the highest room of the tallest tower. A few brief steps carried him to the solid purple door, which melted away at his touch. He was always welcome here.

Stepping inside, he felt the relief of more comfortable, sensible and _familiar_ surroundings. It looked much like the Headmaster's office at Hogwarts. Larger, yes. More ornate, of course. But still comfortably familiar. There were even conjured illusions of the headmasters' portraits. Though Albus had made such great strides in freeing his mind of the constraints of the physical, he clearly nursed a lingering nostalgia for the life he'd had before.

Albus, standing behind a familiar desk, looked toward the door, and the others standing around it turned as well.

"Ahh, Severus."

Severus Snape ascended the steps to the raised platform at the center of the office. In the years since his own death, he had worked hard to let go of old hurts. Old anger. Still, as he joined their company, he had to force himself to greet the men before him kindly. He worked to hide his dislike for their familiar faces. They all looked much as they had when they attended Hogwarts together, when their rivalry and mutual hatred had been strongest.

He shook James Potter's hand first, meeting his gaze with a forced smile. James' smile seemed equally unconvincing. Oddly, civility between them had been established fastest — he supposed because they had been separated by death for so much longer. Sirius Black and Remus Lupin kept their handshakes brief, and spared him no smiles. Despite his pivotal role in bringing down the Dark Lord, forgiveness was still coming slowly. In truth, he felt identically. Fortunately, the last of Albus' guests greeted him with enthusiasm. Lily Potter threw her arms around him and squeezed him tightly.

"Thank you for coming, Sev."

He nodded. "Albus' summons seemed urgent."

"As urgent as anything can be when time has no meaning, Severus," Albus said. "I found him."

Their present company was instantly forgotten. He fixed his gaze on Albus. His beard was auburn, his face almost youthful. Severus had never seen him so young, at least not in life, but he was getting used to the man's customary appearance now.

"The Dark Lord?"

Albus nodded. "Yes. He's here, in the Afterverse. It appears that though he was unable to cross over on his own, his vengeful victims pulled him the rest of the way across for the purpose of punishing him."

"My mother mentioned some of her friends bragging about punishing him. We assumed they'd conjured some simulacrum."

"Yes, he's been here for some time," Albus said. "His soul is so weak, due to fragmentation, that he is completely powerless. His Space is precisely what his tormentors chose it to be and he is unable to alter it, or even to move about on his own."

"Fitting."

Albus hesitated a moment, keeping his eyes fixed on Severus. "I'm going to try and help him, Severus."

"What?" Such was his shock that, in his peripheral vision, he saw his hands, cloak and robes instantly turn white. A focused thought returned them to normal.

"I am going to try and locate the fragments of his soul and put him back together."

"Albus, he isn't worth the effort," Severus said. "He deserves the fate he made for himself."

Stepping forward, Lily placed her hands on the desk. Severus was learning to accept that she would never love him as she loved her husband, but their friendship was quickly returning. Her expression for Dumbledore was quite serious.

"You know that James and I will support you in whatever you decide, Albus," she said. "We trust your judgment, but regardless of whether you think he deserves a chance, is it even possible?"

"Just because no one ever tried, does not mean it is not possible," Dumbledore said. "It is possible in life for a split soul to be restored, even if the process itself can result in death. In that case, it should be possible here, after death."

"Only Harry has the right to decide whether this should be attempted," James Potter said. "We should wait for him."

Severus resisted the urge to argue against the man he had hated in life. Letting go of such things was still difficult. He reluctantly nodded agreement.

"Do you truly believe, after everything he accomplished and did, that Harry would be capable of the kind of hate required to condemn any man to that fate for eternity?" Albus replied. "I am certain, beyond a doubt, that Harry will agree that he should be given the chance. Witness their final confrontation. . . ."

He gestured, and the formless mist of the Afterverse rose up out of the desk and became a crisp vision of the youthful Harry Potter facing off against the Dark Lord. _"It's your one last chance,"_ The simulacrum of Potter said, _"it's all you've got left. . . . I've seen what you'll be otherwise. . . . Be a man. . . . try. . . Try for some remorse. . . ."_ The scene dissolved back into white smoke as quickly as it had formed.

". . . .even then, Harry tried to convince him to repent."

"My question, Albus, is whether we can trust Riddle at all?" Lupin asked, leaning against one of the many pillars encircling the ornate office Dumbledore had created for himself. "He was one of the most brilliant and evil wizards in history. Restore him, make him whole, and suppose he finds a way to start a reign of terror, even here where such a thing has never been attempted!"

"No, Remus," Albus said. "The very nature of that restoration would require absolute and genuine repentance to be successful. The success of the endeavor would prove that he was worthy of the attempt. If he is unworthy or unrepentant, I will not succeed."

"_We_, Albus," Lily said. "You will not be alone in this. I will help you, even if none of the others will."

Potter and Lupin nodded, as did Black, but Severus took a step back. "I am sorry, Albus, but I am not ready for this. You will undertake this without my assistance. I do not have it in me to forgive him. I will not impede your attempt, though I am sure that others will try."

"I know that some will attempt to stop me," Albus said. "Which is why I'm trusting all present to keep this between ourselves."

Severus hesitated, then said, "Very well. I shall speak of this to no one."

He turned to leave, but made no attempt to hurry out.

"I move that the Order of the Phoenix be reborn, then," Albus said to the others. "It's new purpose, not to oppose Voldemort, but to restore Tom Riddle's soul."

As Severus touched again the purple door, which melted away, he heard the others agree. Reluctantly, perhaps, but they agreed.

"Where will you begin?" Lily asked.

"_That_. . . . is a very good question."

And then the door shut behind him. He stared at it briefly, hesitating. He wanted to reconsider. He _wanted_ to agree. But he couldn't. With a thought, he instantly returned to his own Space.


	3. Waking Death

**Chapter Three**

**Waking Death**

The only sound, apart from the faint rumble of thunder and torrential rain, was the scratching of his quill, echoing off the stone walls. He spared no attention to his stark surroundings, his familiar stone cell. The only decoration, apart from his cot and his writing desk, were his leather-bound journals, stacked neatly next to the desk. The oldest and newest lay side-by-side upon the desktop, as he took careful notes on his previous entries. These entries, his very oldest, were dated with dates he now knew were meaningless. All his previous journals were missing, Vanished. He had once suspected they had been taken by the guards in the night. Now, he suspected — No, he _knew __—_ that they had never been here at all. Once again, he poured over his "first" journal.

* * *

_March 17, 1998, morning?_

_A storm rages outside. It must be morning, but such is the storm that the sun is hidden. The lands outside are lit as if by twilight despite the storm, so it must be midmorning at least, possibly even noon. Jakob did not wake me, nor has he delivered my first meal._

_Last night I dreamed. I usually relive the moments of my worst mistakes. I see them again, and again, and each time I am reminded again of the magnitude of my folly. My arrogance. My lack of compassion. But this dream. For the first time, I dreamed something new. It was vivid and real. Could it have been a premonition? It has been many years since I looked to the future. Have I ignored my gift for so long that it is now intruding on my dreams, demanding to be heard? Is it a warning that my time is soon?_

_In this dream, Voldemort came to me at last._

_He sought it. It surprises me that he found it necessary to question me. Did he not know history? He had learned that it was I that stole it, that I had possessed it during my campaign to liberate wizardkind from hiding. Is he so foolish that he did not realize who would have taken it from me?_

_No. It could not have been a premonition. A wizard of his caliber could not have been so foolish. It was a dream. A foolish, silly dream of a man that longs for death. Yes. That is it. Even my dreaming mind wants to die._

_Why will death not take me?_

_Let it be real. Let him come and kill me at last. I have done my penance._

_Give me freedom._

* * *

His gaze swept over the gap of empty page down to the bottom where he had appended a second entry.

* * *

_March 17, 1998, evening?_

_Jakob did not bring my meals today. Do I deserve to starve? Perhaps. But Jakob__'s punctuality is something I've come to count on. That he forgot me is concerning. Has something happened?_

_I shall ask tomorrow, assuming someone comes._

* * *

He now knew, of course, that Jakob, his guard for eleven years, had never been _here_. He turned the page.

* * *

_March 18, 1998_

_Were it not for yesterday__'s entry, I would not even know that a day has passed. The dream, which I described there, happened again. Vivid and real. He came, he demanded it, we argued and then he killed me._

_Jakob, again, has left me to starve. And yet my hunger pangs are no worse. I feel as though I ate just yesterday. My thirst is no worse, as if I just drank yesterday. I would believe I had ate and drank yesterday as normal, that today were again March 17, were it not for yesterday__'s entry._

_Am I going mad? Is dementia setting in at last? I am old. I am not immune from the ravages of aging on the mind. I have not been visited by the prison healer in weeks. Perhaps, at last, senility has come to take me. But is it not said that insanity robs one of self-reflection? Can I, in insanity, question my sanity? That axiom suggests that I remain sane._

_And yet my circumstance is anything but sane._

_I can recall no second night. No second sleep. No second waking. It is as if I am simply waking continuously as the storm roils outside my window, waking for uncounted hours until so much time has passed that I forget time has passed at all. Until I read my entry. It must be tomorrow. It must be March 18._

_What is happening?_

* * *

Insane, and yet sane, he mused to himself. Insane enough to be trapped, sane enough to eventually break free. He turned the page again.

* * *

_March 19, 1998_

_It is tomorrow and also today and yesterday, yet again._

_I have no explanation._

_No food or drink for a third day, and yet no real hunger or thirst. No sign of the guards, no visit from the healer, though his check-in was due. Today, I banged on the door. I screamed for help. For a response. From anyone. No answer. I realized that I cannot even hear the voices and noises of the prisoners below, drifting in through my narrow window. Even over the rumble of the storm, I should hear something. Someone. Has the prison been abandoned?_

_That seems the easiest explanation, but it cannot account for this perplexing sense that time has stopped and that I am reliving the same day again and again._

_Perhaps if I slept. Have I slept? I cannot recall._

_Once again, I question my sanity. I shall try to sleep._

* * *

Even now, he was unsure if he ever actually slept during that time. He likely wandered about his cell in confused delirium before stumbling accidentally upon his journal and, after reading again the previous entries, supposing he had just awoken. He turned the page.

* * *

_March 20, 1998, morning?_

_I awake again from the dream. As vivid and real as the first time I described in my March 17 entry. No hunger. No thirst. The prison empty and abandoned. No memory of the intervening time._

_What is happening?_

* * *

The entry continued after a meager gap of an inch.

* * *

_March 20, 1998, afternoon?_

_Something has happened. My hypothesis that I have lost my sanity is becoming more and more irrefutable. Moments ago, I noticed that I am covered by scars. Every inch of my body. How long have I been like this? How could I not have noticed?_

_My hands, arms, chest, legs and, if my sense of touch is to be trusted, my face are scarred by uncountable, healed lacerations. I have no explanation._

* * *

He now suspected that the scars were remnants of his cruelty. Though he'd never made a Horcrux, he had murdered. He had tortured. He had terrorized. All these actions must injure the soul. A wizard that created a Horcrux could restore the torn fragment to his soul if he felt remorse for his actions. Perhaps the same held true for injuries. He was sure — reasonably sure, anyway — that his scars were healed because of the remorse he experienced as he aged in the confines of his cell.

The next page. The "date" had been later struck through by a single line, with the title "Entry 1" added next to it.

* * *

_March 21, 1998?__ Entry 1_

_It cannot be March 21. But what else can I call it? How much time has passed?_

_I have just reread this journal as though for the first time. I can barely remember writing the words that came before, as though weeks and months have passed. And yet the dream feels fresh and new._

_But it cannot be March 21, because I opened my cell door today._

_The easiest explanation would be it has been weeks or months since the Sealing Charm was last recast. My magic, without a wand, should not be able to overcome a fresh Sealing Charm. Albus himself conceived it. And yet I willed the door to unlock and open, and it did. I explored the prison and found it empty._

_But that suggests months must have passed since the evacuation. And yet I do not hunger. I do not thirst. As I write, I can conceive of only one plausible explanation. It terrifies me. I not want to commit it to parchment, and yet I must, lest I forget._

_I am dead._

_As I wrote the words just now, a shudder passed through my body. I think I__'ve realized it before, but I never committed it to parchment. I must write it again:_

_I am dead._

_Suddenly, I feel more awake than I believe I have been since I arrived in this place that is and is not Nurmengard. I feel as if my mind has been freed from some invisible bondage. Once more:_

_I am dead._

_My dream was no dream. Voldemort came to me. He sought the Elder Wand. I lied, and claimed never to have it. He killed me._

_And now I am here, in a waking death without end._

_What now?_

* * *

He closed the journal. He knew so much more now, and yet still knew so little. He learned that he could, with effort, conjure anything with a thought. Below this room, he had meticulously and slowly restored the remainder of Nurmengard to its former glory. . . . and yet he chose to spend most of his time here in the tallest tower. The rest of the castle felt wrong to inhabit. It was a reminder of his past cruelty. His vain ambitions. No. This barren cell was where he belonged, as he puzzled out the nature of his existence after death.

More than anything, he wanted to know how long he'd been dead. He wanted to know how many days, weeks, months or even years had passed between each of those entries as he had existed in a waking fever dream. . . . a stupor that broke the moment he wrote "I am dead." He wasn't even sure that this journal was truly the first. How many times had he written a handful of these entries only for his delirious thoughts to banish them from existence and force him to start anew? How could he now keep track of time when his fragile perceptions constantly altered the speed with which a clock turned?

He had spent the uncountable time since then experimenting with this bizarre afterlife, taking detailed notes on his experiences from Entry 1, his first lucid experience, to today's Entry 873. But now, _something_ was different. He glanced again at the reflection in the mirror before him, the newest addition to his spartan cell, then he resumed writing.

* * *

_Entry 873_

_Something is different._

_Since my awakening, I have written the previous entries in a listless pall of melancholy. I have felt empty and without purpose, much as I did in life as I languished in prison for my crimes._

_But in the past hour, a peculiar sense of hope and optimism has crept into my mind. I suddenly feel as though I am waiting for something, or someone._

_My appearance has changed. My scars remain, but my face now looks as it did when I was at the height of my power, just before my defeat. It is for that reason that I have been rereading my journals, seeking some clue __—_

* * *

"Gellert."

More shocking than hearing a human voice for the first time since death was Gellert Grindlewald's lack of shock. Particularly given the familiarity of that voice. He lay down his quill, stood and turned, eerily calm, and there in the doorway of his cell was Albus Dumbledore, looking exactly as he had on the day that they had fought and he had lost.

"Albus?"

Albus nodded, smiling cautiously but kindly.

"I am sorry," he began, "that I did not come sooner."

Gellert racked his mind for words to say, but he was speechless. What do you say when visited at last, in death, by your oldest lover and greatest enemy? Particularly when he is the first to do so. Particularly when his first words are an. . . . apology?

"I have been here for an hour at least, trying to find you," Albus said cautiously. "I confess I did not expect to find you up here."

"The castle below is a reminder of what I was," Gellert said at last. "I spent most of my life here. This feels like home."

"You spend all your time here?"

"Yes. I only pass through the rest of the castle when I decide to go outside. And, given the storm, you can imagine how rarely I do that."

Albus stepped out of the doorway and crossed to the window, looking out across the beautiful peaks of the Austrian Alps. Suddenly, the thunder quieted. The clouds lightened and the torrential rain slowed to a light drizzle.

"Even in death, I have proved myself a foolish, selfish old man," Albus began. "During the height of your power, I selfishly avoided facing you. Now, in death, I selfishly avoided you for fear of confronting your worst self yet again. I am relieved that it is not so. I am relieved that your scars are healed and that you are aware of your situation. Many who bathed themselves in cruelty are trapped in a hell of their own making, unable to escape the cycle of self-defeat."

He paused then, still gazing out the window as the clouds turned white and parted to reveal the sun. Was it really Albus, or some simulacrum his lonely mind had conjured? After a few moments, Gellert decided to speak.

"I began there. I do not know how long I was trapped in that fever dream. Eventually, I began to keep a journal, and through it gradually realized what had happened. Voldemort killed me when I refused to tell him you had the wand."

Albus nodded. "Yes, I know."

"How can you know?"

"There are techniques for observing the physical universe we left behind. I will try and teach them to you. The Scarred, such as yourself, are handicapped here, but your healing is extensive. Much also depends on how strongly you are remembered there, and the nature of the remembrance."

Gellert considered that carefully. He doubted he was well-remembered, or that many of the living would appreciate his spying on their lives.

"So I am to expect regular visits?"

"That, and more. This is your Space. For those who are strong enough, our personal relationships forge paths we can traverse by thought to the Spaces of others. I am reasonably confident that as we restore our friendship, that connection will become strong enough for you visit my Space."

Gellert nodded, but before Albus could continue he asked the burning question to which he needed an answer.

"Does time matter, here?"

Albus smiled. "Yes, and no. Our perception can make it run faster or slower, but time itself does seem to flow forward. Those who still live in the physical universe are not yet here. And those that have been here longest often disappear and move on to something. . . . else. In that way, time matters here."

"Then please tell me —" He could not keep his desperation out of his voice. "— how long have I been dead?"

Albus' expression became grim. "I do not know how quickly your mind has caused time to flow in your Space, but it is presently somewhere around mid-May in the year 2019 on Earth."

His mind reeled. He grasped for his desk chair and dropped into it hard. Placing his hands on his head, he pressed his temples tightly.

"Twenty-two years."

"Perhaps now, you understand my haste to apologize," Albus said, caution and a tinge of fear etched into his tone. "I have no excuse for waiting this long. I died many months before you did."

Gellert looked up from his hands, his emotions seething beneath what he hoped was a calm exterior. "What changed?"

"Voldemort."

Gellert smirked. "Has someone finally killed him?"

Albus shook his head. "No. He died just three months after you. He foolishly took the Elder Wand from my tomb, believing that would make him its master. Call it providence if you wish, but circumstances arranged for Harry Potter to become its true master. When Voldemort attempted to kill him with it, it turned the Killing Curse back on him."

"If he's been dead for twenty-two years, why does he bring you to me now?"

Albus moved closer and sat in a chair, much like the plain wooden thing Gellert sat on, that appeared even as he lowered himself into it.

"Do you know what a Horcrux is?"

Gellert nodded. "Yes. I assumed he made one. It was the only explanation for his return from 'death.'"

Gellert listened intently, with no small degree of surprise, as Albus explained Voldemort's intentional creation of no less than six Horcruxes and the accidental creation of a seventh in Harry Potter. Of course, with a soul mutilated by the creation of half a dozen Horcruxes, it was no surprise that a rebounding Killing Curse would fragment it further.

"He was a fool," Gellert said bluntly. "He came to _me_ seeking the Elder Wand. A foolish waste of time. At the moment he learned I took it from Gregorovitch, he should have realized you took it from me and gone straight to your tomb. At the beginning, I could not believe his visit had really happened because it represented such folly on his part."

Albus sighed, his disappointment in his old pupil obvious. "There is a reason why your campaign was more successful, overall, than his. He was blinded by arrogance to a degree that you never were."

"So how does all this bring you to me?"

"Please know that I had, truly, planned to visit you eventu—"

"Enough apologizing, Albus. Out with it."

After a final hesitation, Albus explained that Voldemort had been unable to transition into the Afterverse — "An amusing, but accurate name," he interjected — due to the extensive damage to his soul. He had been stuck between the two states of existence. His victims, seeking vengeance, had some time ago pulled him the rest of the way across. And now. . . ."

"You want to restore him?"

"I do," Albus said. "My conscience cannot bear to leave him wallowing in that state, without even attempting to save him. The circumstances of his birth and early life were far from ideal, and his loss of the ability to love not entirely surprising."

"He would have to feel genuine, true remorse. Do you think that will happen?"

"No, I don't. But I will try nonetheless."

"And that brought you to me, because you seek insight. How do you introduce empathy into the mind of a genocidal madman?"

The bitterness of his tone was slight, but not missed by his former lover and enemy.

"You were neither genocidal nor mad, Gellert, but yes, I hope that you will be able to help me convince him of the wrongness of what he has done."

"It took me decades to accept that and begin to feel remorse, but then. . . . I suppose we have centuries or even millenia, now." He smiled. "It's as good a pass-time as any."

Albus' expression made clear that he had not expected such a warm response to his plan. He stood up.

"If you are to help me, you will need to learn more about the Afterverse," he said.

Gellert rose as well, and extended his hand.

"I can check my calendar to be sure, but I am confident that I have no conflicting engagements."

A twinkle of amusement glittered in Albus eyes as they shook hands, and with a surprised yell he felt Albus pull him into a tight hug.

"I _am_ truly sorry, Gellert."

As they pulled apart, he looked carefully into Albus' eyes. That indefinable _something_ that set living eyes apart from dead ones was there. Could a simulacrum be so convincing, even here? At last, he dared to believe.

"It really is you, isn't it?"

Albus nodded gentle, a hopeful smile appearing on his face.

"I am sorry, too, Albus. We shall be friends, I hope."

For the first time in nearly a century, Gellert Grindelwald felt a measure of happiness.


End file.
